I'd been trouble-free with TalkTalk for a few years. Then I upgraded to its Essentials phone, broadband and TV package and there was a problem. I was sent an inferior router and couldn't connect all my stuff.

They have a department called customer services. I thought I'd get in touch.

TalkTalk doesn't do customer service, I learned; not for 'Essentials' customers at any rate.

An 'Essentials' customers is not essential. In spite of a rising annual bill, likely to approach £500 over the coming, year, Essentials customers aren’t worth 20 quid to TalkTalk,

In a parallel customer service world, when Argos accidentally sold me the wrong printer, the store manager gave me ink replacement cartridges to the value of the printer without me asking for anything. I was amazed - a 50 quid gesture that pretty much secures loyalty.

When TalkTalk 'upgraded’ my service to Essentials, it downgraded my router to an inferior one and demanded that I pay to upgrade it back to the one it had previously provided.

The guff in the TalkTalk 'upgrade' pack insisted the new one was better so I packed the old one off for recycling and installed the new, better one.

Socket to me one more time: 'No way,' says TalkTalk. Be warned that the Essentials router only has two sockets for ethernet cables rather than the four in the previous router it supplied.

It's not better.

The old one had four sockets for external cables that connect devices and consoles, the new one only has two. Among the devices I couldn’t connect was the fancy wireless Hive thermostat I'd arranged to have installed for £200.

Other problems to have emerged include:

The router's 'improved' range doesn't extend to the whole house.

The YouView box you use to change channels and find shows on catch-up services such as the BBC iPlayer is slow and often unresponsive.

Channels are suddenly becoming unavailable because of distortion blamed on my old cables and aerial. I've not been able to watch any World Cup football on ITV. BBC channels are also affected.

So I thought I ask TalkTalk for a replacement router. It seemed a reasonable request. Five hundred quid a year is not insignificant and when you've been stitched up with an inferior product, surely the customer services team would try to undo the dodgy stitches and put things right.

'No way,’ said the email reply from customer services, ‘that’s the router you get with this package. Bug off,’ or words to that effect.

So I turned to the online chat. But the online customer services chat service didn’t work.

'Did you find the chat helpful?' asked the little chat box. Not really. We didn't chat. It didn't work.

So I turned to Twitter and the @TalkTalkCare account set up, one presumes, for this kind of impasse.

‘Look, just leave us alone,’ implied one of the unnamed carers, ‘you’ll get nothing from us. We don’t do customer service. We’re TalkTalk. We're in the sales business. Bug off,’ or words to that effect.

So I threatened to leave TalkTalk and was offered of a 'customer service' phone call.

They only make these calls once an hour on the hour, presumably because it takes up to an hour to fix the messes caused by a customer service policy that involves telling loyal customers to bug off at every stage.

To complicate matters, I was ill and the side-effects from the drugs I'd been prescribed - Google 'oxaliplatin side effects' if you're interested - meant it was very difficult at times to use the telephone.

Eventually we arranged a convenient time and so began a barrage of sales calls.

The customer services call wasn’t a customer service call but a sales call directing me to the website to buy the router that they should have supplied me in the first place.

I was offered various ways of paying to upgrade my already downgraded upgrade - eventually for as little as £20 with a complicated cashback scheme. I wasn't prepared to pay more.

That’s when I asked if I could dump my TalkTalk contract and switch to another provider.

And the man said I could.

TalkTalk was increasing its prices mid-contract, which provided a window to switch to a provider that might feature customer service as part of the package.

For the sake of 20 quid TalkTalk would rather I took my £500 a year elsewhere. We ended our conversation.

Then more sales calls began in panicky succession.

Three in a row, trying to sell upgrades to my Essentials package that including a router that routed what you needed routing plus a load of channels I didn't want.

I wasn't feeling up the taking the calls - I was ill - so my wife intervened. But they cannot talk to her without my permission.

'You're sick,' said the man. He really said this.

Yes I am. Sick and tired. Tired of TalkTalk.

‘Can I speak to your wife?’

‘Are you selling anything?’

‘No,’ he lied, launching immediately into another sales pitch to Mrs Browning.

The trouble is, all our so-called communications companies are impossible to communicate with. TalkTalk is no worse than Virgin or BT in my experience. And Sky is expensive.

So for now I'll have to stick with little TalkTalk with its global sales force of pretend customer service agents, without all my stuff connected until something smaller and more humane comes along.

But be warned, if you are considering ‘upgrading’ to TalkTalk 'Essentials', your hardware maybe downgraded and there is nothing you can do about it unless you want to be sold another upgrade to the upgrade you've already paid for.

Note: TalkTalk announced an updgrade this week to a 'new turbo-charged TalkTalk Player. Says the guff: 'You spoke and we listened, so we’ve made it; easier to use, quicker to load, more tailored to you and much more besides.'

This won't replace the router but maybe it will help find the missing World Cup football.